REVIEW: True Detective – “Night Finds You”

The following is a review of “Night Finds You” from the second season of True Detective, beware of spoilers.

The second episode of the second arc of True Detective began the ‘partnership’ that we had been waiting for, but also gave us some of the magical speeches that the show perfected in the first season. We had the first real cliffhanger of the season, and suddenly the Caspere-case is much more interesting. But the Fukunaga-less second season is definitely still finding its feet.

What the hell is Paul Woodrugh doing? This is a serious question. I really like Taylor Kitsch, but he is by far the least interesting part of the season. We definitely need some better character moments from him, for he is actually the only main character that, at the moment, doesn’t really interest me.

Another thing I didn’t really like about this episode was how the scene between Ray and his wife was executed and performed. Something was just off about it, in my opinion. However, I definitely think that Ray Velcoro’s story is the most interesting one. I’m still not quite sure what to make of it all, but at times it feels like we’re watching a dirty pre-nihilism version of Detective Cohle.

Vince Vaughn just works as Frank Semyon. Every time I see him on this show I think about D’Onofrio as Kingpin. You just wait for him to reveal his dark secrets. But we need something more than a D’Onofrio impression. Semyon’s speech about his father was absolutely spectacular, though, and possibly the best written speech I’ve heard Vaughn deliver.

“We get the world we deserve” – Ray Velcoro

I’ve got to say that Antigone and Ray are becoming my two favorite characters this season. Farrell’s Ray Velcoro was the star of the last episode, and though I don’t feel that there was a star performance in this episode – the best scene was most definitely the conversation between Antigone and Ray in the car.

Antigone knows about Ray, and she sure isn’t afraid to confront him. Her entire mission is interesting, for she is knowingly working with a corrupt cop. One of the best parts of the first season was how the detective partnership worked. The first episode of season two didn’t really give us any similar relationship, but this episode sure did. Ray and Antigone’s conversation was stellar.

But we’ll hear Velcoro’s cries nevermore. All jokes aside though, wasn’t it weird that a man in a raven-mask shot down Velcoro? Did he really need a symbolic mask to shoot down a detective? The entire scene did shock me, though. Velcoro’s not supposed to die yet, he’s the best character on the show.

Next episode is directed by the talented Danish director Janus Metz Pedersen, this is, however, his biggest job yet so should be interesting to see how he performs. So far Justin Lin has failed to top Fukunaga’s excellent work from the first season, but Lin has been solid so far.